Modular electronic equipment typically is designed to be arranged within standard sized racks. Each rack typically includes first and second vertical supports that are separated by an opening. The opening widths of racks tend to be standard sized, as adopted by industry, manufacturers, and/or governments. In the United States, for example, telecommunication service providers often use racks having opening widths of twenty-three (23) inches, whereas telephone companies in European countries often use racks having opening widths of nineteen (19) inches.
Rack mountable electronic equipment often is modular. Often, modular electronic equipment is installed into a chassis and the chassis is then mounted within the opening of a rack. In the case of modular communication equipment, a chassis may house optical electronic equipment such as transmitters, receivers, intelligent control interface modules, power supplies, and the like. A chassis may also house cooling fans or other cooling mechanisms to aid in controlling the operating temperature of the equipment modules.
In a typical scenario, an electronic equipment module (hereinafter referred to as “a module”) slides into a slot (or slots) in the chassis and connects at one end to a chassis backplane that has mating communication connectors to receive the module.
As a result of the differences in sizing of rack opening widths, rack mountable electronic equipment designers must design equipment to fit within the various rack geometries. This increases the costs of design, manufacturing, installation, maintenance, and distribution, for example. Various attempts have been made to address these limitations.
Existing chassis often are constructed to fit within a standard rack, wherein the chassis has various slots defined therein for receiving equipment.
As demands for functionality of electronic equipment increase, designers are confronted by space limitations in placing electronic components in equipment. Constraints on design can include component placement, manufacturing limitations, thermal limitations and cooling requirements, and structural constraints to deal with handling, shock, and vibration. Thus, as the demands for functionality increase, so does the desire to utilize a circuit board form factor as large as possible. In addition, electrical equipment products are often designed to optimally fit in one primary rack opening width. However, optimizing the configuration of the equipment for only a single rack can result in a suboptimal configuration if the same equipment is used in a different rack, such as when space in the other rack remains unoccupied as a result of installing equipment specifically designed for the single rack. When attempting to mount the same equipment into different racks, equipment designers are often limited by the size and layout of components and the configuration of the rack, which can result in valuable space within the rack remaining unused. The results often include higher component density circuit boards, greater need for forced cooling of mounted components due to reduced surface area on the circuit board, and the need to use additional racks and floor space to house additional equipment.
Moreover, this equipment specialization can increase design, manufacturing, and distribution costs for such equipment.